The X-All Mountain 2016 is technically retired but it's still sold online.The X-All Mountain 2016 is no longer produced by Cassin. We're showing it as "available" on WeighMyRack because you can still find it at trustworthy online retailers.

X-All Mountain 2016

Cassin

Rating

Description

Optimized pick angle and tooth configuration climbs all angles of ice remarkably.
Interchangeable head components make switching between an adze and hammer or replacing picks simple and affordable.
Interchangeable grips come in three varieties for leashless, leashed and alpine or snow climbing. They all bolt onto the shaft with one screw and because of their dual density molded construction, they dampen vibrations and insulate remarkably well.
The spike is large enough to grip on low angle glacier ice and has a hole large enough to clip a carabiner for use with lanyards.

The X-All Mountain tool is simply the best — and we say simply in the most sincere way possible. It is not an overly complex design. It is ‘simply’ a perfectly-balanced, fine-tuned, high-quality ice climbing machine. Due to its simplicity, it climbs all angles of ice with much more fluidity and consistency than other modern tools. The profiled pick and perfect head weight make it the best tool for thin ice where it penetrates aggressively with minimal impact on the ice. We have increased the size of the main pommel on the handles to provide an extra four millimeters in width and length for use with thicker gloves.

For climbers who have experienced the frustrations of pick bounce, ice bashing and shoulder fatigue common with the more aggressive mixed tools or more classic style tools, we encourage you to swing the new X-All Mountains. Once you do, there will be no going back.

Retail price

US$ 219.95

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In all, I’d highly recommend this as your “daily driver” tool if you focus mainly on water ice and alpine climbing. It will get the job done in moderate mixed terrain, but if that’s your focus, consider the Cassin X-Dream, another great tool from the folks at CAMP.

Have you ever tried climbing grade 2 or 3 with aggressive tools? It’s not fun. Swinging down instead of over your head is cumbersome and trying to pull the tool out after is even more so. The curved shape (instead of bent shape) of the X-All Mountains allows for climbing on easier ice as well as steeper climbs. Though I have climbed my fair share of 5’s on top rope, I am just beginning to lead easier climbs and wanted a tool that would work in a variety of situations. Furthermore, I have found that these tools will work mixed climbing without being a mixed specific tool or having a mixed specific pick. This was a big factor in choosing the X-All Mountain vs. the X-Dream. The X-Dream are very nice to climb with, but were a bit too aggressive to learn to lead easy ice with. Lastly, the shape of the handle and spike at the bottom of the X-All Mountain makes using it on the approach slopes easy to penetrate snow like with a mountaineering axe.

With handle- and pick- angles that are so similar to those of more mixed-oriented tools, the X-All doesn’t drytool as well as I expected. On lower-angled rock the tool has a tendency to wobble side-to-side, while on overhanging sections, the tool seems to pivot outwards on the tip of the pick. Similarly, matching on the upper grip doesn’t perceptibly shift the pick, but it does feel less secure than the normal, lower grip. When testing several different tools at a local mixed crag, at around WI4- and M7-, surprisingly the X-All felt least secure on both ice and rock, even when compared to less-aggressively curved tools such as the BD Cobra.

My usual tools have a curved shaft very similar to the Cassin X-All Mountain tools, so the slightly altered swing was very natural for me. The thing I noticed right way was how clean they stuck in the ice. The first time I used them the ice was pretty brittle, my usual tools would have been knocking dinner plates down from the wall left and right. The X-All Mountain tools have a slightly thinner pick. The teeth start about 1cm from the tip giving a nice clean stick, making that confidence inspiring thunk again and again. Laws of physics still apply and brittle ice will still break and crack, but these Cassin ice tools definitely have an edge over other designs. The fairly exaggerated angle of the shaft helps with hooking and keeping hands out of harms way when working around bulges and features. This also puts the hands in a pump-friendly position making the grip more horizontal than vertical and thus easier to hang onto without an overly tight grip.

The X-All Mountain is the finest thin-ice tool I have used, and one of the top all-around ice tools. The secret to the X-All’s performance is its needle-like pick, light swing and curved (not bent), shaft. All work in harmony to minimize ice fracturing. The picks are so easy to set, in fact, that you are apt to bury them in fat ice, making cleaning difficult. As I learned, the X-All requires a lighter, finer touch than other tools.

There are only so many ways of describing an ice tool. Attributes worth discussing are shaft clearance, pick angle and spike pointy-ness—the X-All Mountain excels at all of them. But in reality, biomechanics have a lot to do with matching a user to their perfect tool. And the X-All Mountain feels like a custom tool made just for me. I have climbed dozens of pitches with this tool, and put it into many beginners' hands. Instant feedback from novices included comments about the light weight, plentiful clearance and pinky protection. An even more telling indication of their quality is the frequency that clients choose these tools over the others in my collection. My X-All Mountains are the clear favorites.